Design and Optimization of Electrical Contacts on Diamond

Overview:
Diamond’s exceptional thermal conductivity, wide bandgap, high breakdown field, and chemical stability make it an ideal platform for high power, high frequency, and harsh environment electronics. Yet, forming robust, low resistance, and reliable electrical contacts on diamond remains a major fabrication challenge due to its chemically inert surface and unique electronic properties (e.g., surface termination effects and dopant activation).
Objective: Develop, fabricate, and characterize optimized metal contacts on diamond, focusing on the interplay between adhesion/junction metal thickness, metal stack selection, surface preparation, and TLM (Transmission Line Measurement) structure design to minimize contact resistance while maximizing mechanical robustness and process compatibility.

What You’ll Do:

• Design and fabricate TLM and Kelvin test structures for contact resistance extraction.
• Assess ohmic vs. rectifying behaviour, contact linearity, and variability across set of devices.
• Investigate surface termination strategies and optimize metal stacks through systematic experiments.
• Perform electrical and structural characterization (I-V, SEM, AFM, Optical characterization).
• Analyze data to define a robust process window for diamond contact fabrication.

Expected Outcomes:

• Optimized contact stack and process guidelines.
• Fabricated test structures with extracted contact resistivity trends.
• Comprehensive report and presentation of findings.

Skills Preferred:

• Background in materials science, electrical engineering, device physics or nanotechnology.
• Familiarity with cleanroom processes and basic electrical measurements.

Skills to Be Developed:

• Expertise in (contact and maskless) lithography, metallization, and advanced characterization.
• Data analysis and process optimization in a research-driven environment.
• Experience with advanced metrology
• Scientific reporting.
   

Type of Internship: Internship

Master's degree: Master of Science

Required educational background: Nanoscience & Nanotechnology; Materials Engineering

Duration: ~6 months (flexible)

Location: imec Cleanroom & Characterization Labs, Leuven

University Promotor: Jan Genoe (KU Leuven)

For more information or application, please contact the supervising scientist Giedrius Degutis (Giedrius.Degutis@imec.be).

Only for self-supporting students.